SemiParallel
by AppleCoreCandyBox
Summary: What if it was only Edward's soul that was taken to the other side of the Gate? What if the Ed of our world had not died? What would you do, if you were suddenly aware of the fact that there was not one, but two people inside your body? AU Pre-CoS
1. loss

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loss**: **_**-noun;** the state of being deprived of or of being without something that one has had_

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It had been over thirty-six hours since Edward and Alphonse Elric's night in the underground city, and very few people had seen either of the boys since the whole mess. From what Riza Hawkeye had come to understand, through various short conversations between her and a friend of hers who just so happened to work on the floor of the hospital where the boys were logded, Alphonse had been sleeping for the most part. The one time he had woken up, he'd immediately asked to see his brother. When she'd initially asked why the boy _hadn't_ been aloud to see Ed, as she had been told, her nurse friend had been a little more than hesitant to answer.

Eventually, the only real answer other than that it was "hard to explain" she got was that she would have to see for herself. So, like Riza Hawkeye always does, she took the best advice that had been given to her, followed through with it, and did in fact go to see for herself exactly what her friend had been unable to explain about Edward Elric. No, the fact that visitors were not yet allowed to see him did not stop her. Nor did the fact that she was, by doctor's orders, not yet permitted to walk around with her arm being injured as it was -but really, she had only been _grazed_, it was hardly something to worry about-. It did not stop her one bit.

The moment she walked in the room however, she began to understand by what her friend had meant by it being "hard to explain". Edward was wide awake when she went to see him. He looked marvelous, especially for someone who had just done the impossible and reunited a human soul with it's accidentaly estranged body. She also noted, her heart expanding in joy at the sight, that Edward's right arm and left leg (foot really, she coldn't see much other than that) did not gleam like they normally would have in the late afternoon sun coming through the window. They were solid, tan colored flesh, the first time she'd ever seen them like that. But as she made this happy revelation, she also slowly made one that was far more disturbing.

Edward had not so much as turned his head upon her entery, eyes remaining focused on the world that lay outside his window. It wasn't just the lack of response that sent her internal warnings off. It was the _way_ he stared at the world outside. So blank and empty, as if everything and nothing was passing before him. As if nothing had any meaning. As if nothing mattered.

Hawkeye made her way to stand beside Ed, finally pulling his attention away from the window with a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm glad to see you're ok."

It was at this point that he turned his eyes -his uncharacteristically _quiet_ eyes- upon her, blinking once before answering.

"You seem to have been injured in your endeavours. Will you be healed soon?"

It took all of Riza's will power to not flinch away at those words. The tone, the lack of any inflection, the diction used...

It was all wrong. All so very wrong.

Where she'd expected an exuberant greeting, one laced with happiness, relief, maybe even a hint of tomfoolery to take the edge off of the serious conversation, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. His voice was as blank and emotionless as a porcelain doll's face. The words were cold. Not in the way that someone makes words cold on purpose; they weren't intended to cut and bite at people's hearts. There was just nothing behind them that would ever lead anyone to think that they had come from someone who was as impassioned by so many things as Edward Elric.

Gently taking her hand off of his shoulder, Hawkeye squared her shoulders and asked the question whose answer she was now most afraid to hear.

"Edward, are you ok?"

Edward was silent for a moment, not even a quick look of pensiveness passing over his face before he answered.

"You must tell me what you mean by 'ok'. If you are able to do such a task for me, then I may be able to tell you whether or not I am, by your standards, 'ok'."

Hawkeye steeled herself further. Thinking quickly, she asked this seemingly emotionless and very literal Edward the next best thing.

"Ed, can you tell me what exactly happened to you and Al the other night? The night in the city underground?"

"It is fairly simple Riza Hawkeye. When I left you and Roy Mustang at your automobile, I made my descent into the city that lies underneath our feet. Once there, I was attacked by the homunculi and their master. We exchanged words, and blows as well. At one point, their master threw me into the Gate Of Truths, where my mind, body, and soul were split apart. My body and mind stayed within the Gate of Truths, but my soul went on beyond. It ended up in a world much like and very dissimilar to this one, inside of a body much like, but very different from my own. I saw Hohenhiem there. He tried very hard to explain to me that equivalent exchange is not and can never be as fair as alchemists make it sound. I grew angry with him and ran away. A falling flying machine, a dirigible was what Hohenhiem called them, fell on me. I died, I'm fairly certain. I awoke back inside the Gate of Truths, body, mind, and soul all as one again. I had just found my way out of the Gate of Truths when the homunculus Envy began attacking me again. He changed his appearance many times during our fight. The last change he made to his face startled me so badly, I hesitated for a moment. When I did, he stabbed something all the way through my chest. I died a second time. I remember standing in front of the Gates of Truth for a second time. I remember seeing Alphonse for a moment, before he dissapeared. Envy was there as well. He opened the doors to the Gate of Truths and walked through. I awoke some time after that. When I asked the woman Rose what had happened, she told me that Alphonse had brought me back to life by using the Philosepher's Stone that was in his body. I, in turn, offered my whole self to the Gates of Truth in exchange for Alphonse's complete self being brought back to this one side of the Gate. And that, Riza Hawkeye, is what happened to me." Edward explained, face and voice clean of all emotion.

With her head reeling from such information -what did he mean by another world?-, Riza slowly tried to peice the puzzle together.

"So, let me get this all straight. You've died not once, but _twice_, right?"

"Yes."

"Once in this world and once in...a world _like_ this one?"

"Yes. The difference between this world and the other is that there is no alchemy in the world beyond the Gate."

Riza nodded, trying her best to believe everything the young man was telling her. Because at this point, so Riza believed, she shouldn't be too surprised by anything, not anymore. With all of the crazy things that had been happening in her life as of recently, it shouldn't be that hard for her to believe that an alternate universe of her world not only existed, but that someone she personally knew had visited it. Right?

Even still, despite all of the crazy things she'd witnessed, this was all a tough order to swallow.

"So, in this whole chain of events, you restored Al?"

"Yes."

"And yourself?"

"Yes and no."

This was the answer Riza had been waiting for, the one she'd been digging at.

"What do you mean by that? 'Yes and no'."

Ed stared blankly at her for a moment before answering.

"I thought it would be obvious at this point, Riza Hawkeye. I restored Alphonse's body and accidentally restored mine in the process. When I went back to the Gate of Truths for the last time, I had intended to give up my whole self in exchange for Alphonse to be whole. The Gate of Truths gave me Alphonse and allowed me to keep my limbs, but it still required something for its services."

Riza was quiet for a beat, again afraid of the answer her impending question might bring.

"Ed, this Gate you're talking about, can I ask what it took from you this time? Instead of a limb, what did it take?"

"My soul."

Riza stared at him, not sure exactly what to make of his words. She knew there was a severity in the fact that, according to Edward, he was talking to her, a body and mind, without a soul to go with it. But what that severity was, the exact weight in Edward's decision to give his soul away was somewhat lost to her. Riza had no way of knowing exactly yet how much it had cost him to give away the thing that made him, well...him.

"Is that why you're the way you are right now? Is that why you're so..."

"Detached?" Edward offered up blankly.

Riza nodded.

"I can not be anything other than what I am without a soul. The mind and body are incapable of creating or feeling emotions on their own terms."

Hawkeye frowned, Ed's hollow tone making her chest ache terribly. It just sounded so awful for him to be talking about his soul, something that even Ed -one of the least God concerned people she'd ever met- knew the deep value of, in the same manner someone would talk about the weather.

"How are you still alive, talking to me and all, if this Gate has taken your soul from you?"

"Riza Hawkeye, a human is made up of three things. Mind, body, and soul. Just like Alphonse was able to live without his body, I can do the same without a soul. When these are not all together at once, the person is incomplete. When separated, each part will pull towards one another until the person is complete again."

In its own twisted way, it made sense. If Alphonse had been able to survive five years without a body, who was to say the same thing in reverse couldn't happen to Ed?

"Will your soul return to you if that were to happen?"

"Perhaps. However, I may be relocated to the other world as well. It is all dependent upon which pulls stronger; my body to my soul, or my soul to my body."

Now, Riza had been doing a very good job so far keeping track of the complicated storyline Edward had been drawing up, if she did say so herself. But this, this one little bit of information, threw her for a loop.

"I thought you said the Gate took your soul."

"It did."

Or possible a corkscrew too.

Riza stood there, thinking about all the information Ed had given her. The Gate had taken his soul, that much they were both certain on. Then why would he even bring up the possibility of his body being pulled by his soul into the parallel world that was beyond all she would ever know?

...unless...

"Ed, did the Gate actually keep your soul? Did it lock it up inside of its self?"

"No."

One little word, and it all suddenly made so much more sense.

"Oh Edward, don't tell me..." she said, leaving her sentence hang for him to finish.

"What am I not telling you?" Ed asked dully.

Had the situation not been nearly as serious, Riza might have scolded him for having such little common sense and no tact. She was beginning to realize though, and quickly, that any new quirk he seemed to be developing was in direct relationship to the simple fact that he had no soul of his own at the moment.

Sighing calmly, Riza continued on, acting as best as she could that Ed's new incapability to see beyond the literal did not bother her.

"Did the Gate send your soul to the other world?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell where it is? How it's fairing?"

"From what I am able to feel, it is doing fine. It seems to have found the body it was inhabiting the first time it made the trip to that other world. It is safe to assume that the other Edward did not die then."

"Do you think you'll be able to get it back? Before it potentially draws you into that other world?"

Edward finally turned his attention away from Hawkeye and back towards the window.

"I do not know, Riza Hawkeye. A body is only meant to house one soul at a time. Not two."

Riza tilted her head, looking out the window with Edward. If she were to believe this, everything Ed had just told her, then somewhere, beyond cosmic laws of space and time that she may never even be able to begin trying to wrap her head around; there was an Edward somewhere, just like the one sitting next to her.

Except, the fact remained that the Other Edward now had two souls within his body, and the one with her had none.

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Somewhat inspired by the fic **Jewelled Dagger **by Griselda Banks; go read it, it's a cool fic. Anyways, expect more to come soon and I hoped you enjoyed the opening chapter!


	2. intruder

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intruder**: **_**-noun;**_ _One who intrudes; one who thrusts himself in, or enters without right, or without leave or welcome; a trespasser_

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It would be an understatement to say that Eduard Durnings was having a bad week. A grave understatement indeed.

Sunday, he had gotten caught in the rain without his umbrella coming home from church services.

Monday, he was so tired from being kept up by the small cold he'd gotten from getting caught in the Sunday rain no less, that he'd accidentally walked into a women's public powder room. Needless to say, he'd been chased out with the utmost of vigor.

Tuesday, a dog had started chasing him during his midmorning walk and had tried to bite him. While it had been quite entertaining for others to witness, it definitely did not put Eduard into a better mood.

Wednesday, he'd been wrongly identified as a petty thief and had spent the whole day behind bars until his father had come and vouched for him.

Thursday, he accidentally fell down on a busy street, right into a large pile of dung. Whether it was human or animal, he wasn't sure, he wasn't certain he wanted to know either way.

When nothing particularly too horrible happened on Friday, he thought his luck might have been finally looking up.

That was until Saturday evening, when, whatever it was, had happened. He couldn't remember too much of it, really. It was all very, well, _odd_.

He'd been in his room, cleaning himself up for dinner, when the most peculiar sensation overtook him. At one point, he thought he'd heard someone call to him. When he looked up towards the sound, his head had begun to throb horribly, his vision swam before his eyes, and then all he could see was darkness. For a long while, Eduard had thought he might have fainted and was dreaming.

He had become someone else; someone very confused, annoyed, and slightly scared. He'd looked at himself in the mirror of his room, surprised to find his hair much shorter then he remembered it. Sirens had begun to sounds when his father banged open the door, telling him they had to flee. He stumbled along outside, not knowing where he was, demanding Hohenhiem that he tell him what was going on.

Father gave him a strange look and grabbed his face hard enough for it to hurt, making him look into his eyes. He asked him if the word "transmute" meant anything to him.

Oddly enough, it had.

It meant science and logic and pain and terror and hope and life and death and brilliant blue light all rolled into one beautiful, awful thing. He told his father that 'Of course it did, why wouldn't it?'

It was when his dreamself didn't recognize zeppelins that he thought maybe, just maybe, he wasn't really dreaming. Tentatively, oh so carefully, he spoke.

"_Hello?"_ His voice sounded far away for some reason, somehow echoing as he spoke.

His dreamself was shocked to hear what he thought was an disembodied voice. The boy-who-was-and-wasn't-him's head began to throb and his eyesight seemed to shift somewhat. Suddenly it was as if he were looking through a mask, not through his very own eyes.

Eduard tired to speak again.

"_Who are you?"_

At this point, some sort of horrible realization came over the other boy. Eduard couldn't tell what it was right away, but the growing sick terror told him that the other boy felt that something, _something_, was just not right.

"Don't tell me", his dreamself asked aloud, "am I in somebody else's body?"

After these fews words, Eduard can't remember anything else. A large blanket of dark forgetfulness is all that he can even bring to mind. The last thing he can recall is a sense of horror, one not so different from what the boy-who-was-and-wasn't-him had felt, as some of the weight of those words hit home. He knew, at least some part of him knew, what the other boy had meant. But the idea, the mere thought alone, had been hard for him to try and grasp. How could that other boy...how could he have been in _his_ body at the same time that he was? It didn't make any sense. Something like that would be impossible, right?

Eduard awakens in the manner that most normal people wake when they've had a nice long sleep. Slowly. Extremely, luxuriously, slowly. Taking his sweet time, Eduard tried to evaluate how he felt right at that moment.

Since no one could be offended by or pardon silent French, Eduard was more then happy to say to himself that, when it came right down to it, he felt like shit. Carefully opening his eyes, he tried to look about the room he was in without moving too much. He saw mostly white walls and ceiling, the smell if antiseptic and bodily fluids in the air.

"A hospital?"

"Yes young man, a hospital indeed."

Eduard turned his attention from the the walls and ceiling to the middle aged nurse who stood in the doorway of his room, her uniform just as immaculately pristine as the walls, a pitcher of water and cup in hand.

"What happened?" he asked her, almost cringing at how dry and weak his voice sounded.

"I'll tell you, it's a down right miracle you're alive Mr. Durnings. It's not everyday someone can get trapped underneath a burning dirigible and live to tell the tale. No broken bones either, and only a few first degree burns and bruises. I'll tell you, I've never seen such good luck." She said, a sort of stern kindness very present in her voice.

Eduard was, without a doubt, shocked. Even if he'd only been minimally hurt, it was no wonder he felt like someone had run him over with a train. A dirigible, one on fire no less, had fallen on him!

"How did I-?"

"A group of travelers passing by saw it crash and went to see if there was any survivors. They found you, pulled you out, and got you to safety; so what I've come to understand. Now, no more talking, you need your rest. Now, try and drink some before you go back to sleep." she said sternly, pouring water from the pitcher to the cup, propping Eduard's head up so he wouldn't choke while trying to drink.

He hadn't realized how thirsty he'd been until his first tentative sip unconsciously turned into large gulps. The nurse gently pulled the glass away just as he began to cough, nearly choking on the water.

"Not so quickly, you'll drown at that rate."

Eduard only coughed, letting his head settle back into the pillow, thirst quenched for the moment.

"Thank you very much." he said, ever the polite soul.

The nurse nodded and made her leave, reminding Eduard that he should try and rest some more. Eduard, though, already knew that it would be a moot point to even make an attempt. His memories of the night before had begun to come back and swarm him.

There was no way for him to try and brush off the odd memories as a dream of sorts; the evidence that what had happened was indeed _real_ were somewhat staggering. Whatever that voice had been, Eduard was glad to know that his body was now his own again, no one else was in control. He lifted a hand up painfully, happy to see that they responded without any difficulty when told to move. God must have been smiling on him. What other way could he explain the apparent miracle that had happened to him?

"_**What a load of bullshit."**_

For a beat, Eduard's heart skipped. It was that voice again, but this time, instead of it coming from his own mouth, it had echoed inside of his mind. Suddenly, his thoughts drifted to the stories of the bible, particularly the one's that involved demons and exorcisms and having one's soul possessed by the devil himself.

"Our Father, whom art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name..." Eduard began to pray shakily underneath his breath, crossing himself several times as he spoke.

"_**Stop it, you're being ridiculous."**_

The thing's voice only made Eduard pray harder, faster. No way was he going to let a demon steal his eternal soul! Not if he could fight it, anyways.

"_**I said stop it! I'm not a demon, you idiot!" **_

The prayers didn't stop, but a new thought did enter Eduard's mind. What if...what if he was becoming like one of those people who speak to walls and get sent away to large, institutionalized buildings that everyone knows of, but don't speak of out of sheer embarrassment?

"_**...You're not going insane, either. I've seen enough crazy people in my life already, and I can tell that you're **__not __**one of them."**_

Eduard stopped praying abruptly, a cold realization coming over him. He hadn't spoken a single word out loud, save for his praying, and the voice had known that he was wondering whether he might be going insane or not.

"What sort of beast are you? How can you hear my thoughts?" Eduard asked out loud, not for a moment trusting this voice.

"_**I already told you, I'm not some beast or demon! God dammit, are you really that dense?"**_

Now, Eduard wasn't much of a stickler for bad language, it didn't really matter to him. So long as God wasn't involved.

"Now you listen here, whatever you are, you're in my head and I'll not have you take the Lord's name in vain while you're there, you understand me?" Eduard hissed furiously.

The voice grumbled underneath it's breath, saying something that distinctly sounded like the aforementioned curse. Eduard bristled mentally for a moment, the heat of his anger extinguished as the nurse from before stepped back into the room, now accompanied by someone he knew well.

"Father!" Eduard said with as much vigor as he could, excited to see the man.

But the voice, whatever was in his head, had a completely different reaction. It didn't say any words, but the cold animosity it felt towards Hohenhiem were staggering. At this moment, images and other emotions brushed up against Eduard's mind. A picture frame that use to hold four people now only had three. A woman, a mother, on her death bed. Abandonment. Anger. Frustration. A grave covered in flowers, two little heads bowed in grief. As soon as the moment had come, it was gone, replaced with a lasting sense of hot apathy.

Eduard tried to shrug off the emotions, tried to not let them show on his face. But, really, it was quite hard to try and ignore something so very potent.

"I'll leave you two to visit for a moment." the nurse said, walking out of the room once more.

Hohenhiem pulled a chair to the side of the bed, smiling as he did so.

"How are you feeling, Eduard? You gave me quite a scare you know!"

"Everything considered, I'd say I'm feeling alright." Eduard said happily, still trying his best to ignore the bitter feelings the voice was directing towards his Father.

"Would you like me to bring you anything from the apartment? Your bible maybe?" Hohenhiem asked, scratching his chin.

"If it doesn't trouble you to do so, that would be wonderful."

Eduard could hear the voice scoff at this and say something about _**'Damn piety'**_.

"Could...could I ask you something, Father?" Eduard asked, very, very softly.

Hohenhiem's head tilted slightly in surprise.

"What is it, Eduard?"

"Do you...do you know exactly what happened to me last night?"

Hohenhiem's face became somewhat more grave.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, a lot of peculiar things seemed to happen. Truth be told, I can't remember a whole lot of it either, just bits and pieces mostly. Please don't think me queer for saying this, but now there's a voice inside of my head and I not quite so sure what to do with it. It wasn't there before last night Father, so I was suspecting that maybe whatever happened last night may tell me why I'm hearing a disembodied voice now." Eduard answered, he's already soft voice growing softer as he admitted to hearing a bodiless voice.

In this day and age, a proclamation of that sort normally meant either social suicide or a one way trip to an asylum. Or, more often then not, both.

Hohenhiem was quiet for a long moment before speaking again.

"Eduard, would it be possible for me to speak to this voice in your head?"

Of all the reactions Eduard had expected, this was certainly not one of them.

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Yes...I have made Eduard religious. Can't you just see the comic tension rising from the situation? Every time I think about it, I laugh heartily on the inside. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the second chapter!

PS: Remember, we're back in the 1930's here. Queer isn't going to talking about someone of the homosexual life choice; it's going to mean _**weird,**_ you know?


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